Hamas’ political leader Khaled Meshaal, having found sanctuary from Damascus in Doha, is again being hounded from pillar to post. debkafile: A deal struck this week between Egypt and Qatar could force the Hamas leader to settle in the Iranian capital. This would afford Tehran a foothold in the Gaza Strip, its second Mediterranean outpost on the Israeli border after Lebanon. The Egyptian-Qatari memo of understanding, signed in Cairo Wednesday, Dec. 24, pulls emirate support from Brotherhood and Hamas operations against Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and top Qatari envoys went through the motions of formalizing the Saudi-brokered reconciliation between them, when they met in Cairo Saturday, Dec. 20. Riyadh celebrated the meeting as the turning of a new page, and the Qatari envoy acknowledged Egypt’s preeminence in the Arab and Muslim worlds. debkafile: But the bone of contention over the emirate’s hosting of the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who was packing his bags to travel to Tehran, remained unresolved. The Saudis demanded his removal from emirate soil.

Both sides were preparing Saturday night, Aug. 23, for an impending battle on Gaza Strip soil, debkafile reports. Heavy IDF ground forces were poised ready to enter the territory – initially to demolish Hamas’s short-range rocket and mortar launchers, which have disrupted the lives of neighboring Israeli communities and forced their mass evacuation. The Palestinian extremists escalated their blitz in the last 48 hours as a provocation, daring the IDF to send in the forces massed around its borders, while preparing terrorists brigades in tunnels and suicide fighters for ambushes.

A narrow, or partial, accord between Israel and Hamas was initialed in Cairo Monday, Aug. 18, say Palestinian sources. Israel does not confirm this. Hamas reportedly agreed not to resume rocket fire when the latest ceasefire ran out at midnight, while Egypt and Israel said to have consented to reopen their border crossings for the delivery to the Gaza Strip of humanitarian assistance. The issue of demilitarization was left till later. Thursday, Mahmoud Abbas is due to discuss with Khaled Meshaal in Qatar the start of Palestinian Authority operations in Gaza.

While talking tough, Hamas is keen on a “humanitarian” ceasefire – not out of sudden concern for Gaza’s civilians but in desperation for an answer to the Chariot-4 tank’s Armored Shield Protection-Active Trophy missile defense system, the Windbreaker. The Russian Kornet-E and the 9M113 Konkurs guided missiles which Hamas has fired against them don’t leave a scratch. Hamas fears that the IDF’s 401st armored brigade’s tanks, the only ones fitted with this armor, will spearhead Israel’s decisive assault on its underground high command, and has asked Tehran to find a counter-measure.

Senior IDF commanders said Wednesday July 23 that it was time for a decisive war move. Dismantling Hamas’ tunnel network would take weeks, they said, but the critical encounter for completing their mission and bringing the war to a close remained to be fought after three key IDF victories: The battle for Shejaiya grabbed the headlines, but the confrontations in Rafah and Khan Younes in southern Gaza were just as important. The commanders urge a large-scale assault on the subterranean complex housing Hamas’ top military command.

The Palestinian Hamas is restored to the Iranian fold with the pledge of an annual allowance of $200 million, military assistance and advanced weapons, in return for a public avowal of Hamas support for Iran’s Syrian policy and Bashar Assad. The deal was secretly sealed Thursday, May 22 at a meeting in Doha between Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Hamas’s politburo head Khaled Mashaal. It places Hamas squarely in the radical Iran-Syrian-Hizballah bloc and re-opens the Gaza Strip door to dominant Iranian influence.

John Kerry faces more obstacles than realistic prospects for his many small steps toward reviving the Middle East peace process and bring Hamas as well as Abu Mazen to the negotiating table. For this he is counting on help from the Turkish prime minister and Qatari emir.

West Bank security has dropped sharply since the Gaza ceasefire brought in eased restrictions for Hamas and fellow terrorists and tight rules of engagement for Israeli soldiers. Palestinian mobs on the West Bank are free to hurl rocks and abuse at Israel soldiers who, like their comrades at the Gaza fence, are not allowed to shoot back. At the assembly the Palestinian Authority has permitted Hamas to stage in Nablus Thursday, West Bank Palestinians will be rallied to the united flag of “resistance.”

Hamas-Damascus, contrary to Western reports, is firmly maintaining its ties with the Assad regime and the Iranian officials posted to the Syrian capital and Beirut as well as Hizballah, debkafile's sources report. Neither is Hamas seeking to break its ties with Iran, its arms and cash supplier for years. Indeed, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is seizing on the coming Tehran visit by Hamas' Gazan Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as opening a back door for mending its fences with the Iranian leadership.

Without informing US or Israeli security coordinators, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday, Dec. 27 suddenly fired the West Bank's top security officer Maj. Gen. Diab el-Ali and replaced him with military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Nidal Dokhan. debkafile reveals this followed a deal with Khaled Meshaal to restore Hamas to the West Bank, retool the PNSF and mount a new anti-Israel "resistance" campaign: mass demonstrations are to smash through West Bank barriers, storm into Israel and break into Jewish settlements.

Mahmoud Abbas must suspend his bid for Palestinian membership of the UN and its institutions to get hold of frozen American and Israeli cash transfers. The Palestinian Authority is not only broke because of his missteps, but also made irrelevant by the upheavals in the rest of the Arab world.

To punish the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for submitting his application for UN membership in defiance of President Barack Obama's strong objections, Washington leaned on Jordan's King Abdullah II to allow a visit by Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to discuss his political bureau's transfer from Damascus to Amman. Saudi Arabia helped persuade him. Obama was telling Abbas thereby that if Hamas should moderate its extremism, his role as sole Palestinian spokesman would face serious competition.

New Israeli concessions to Hamas for the release of the Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit have not produced momentum because the kidnapped soldier has become a pawn in the power plays between Cairo, Hamas and Damascus. Khaled Meshaal's trip to Cairo came out of an Egyptian overture to Syria. Bashar Assad took the Palestinian card to serve his crackdown on the opposition and counter-balance his massacre of Latakia's Palestinians.

Egypt's military rulers are letting Hamas' political leader Khaled Meshaal move his base out of troubled Damascus to the Gaza Strip. The pledge came as an inducement for his signing the Palestinian unity pact with Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah on May 4, as disclosed for the first time by debkafile's intelligence sources. In Damascus, Bashar Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf threatened Syria would go to war against Israel if the US and Europe did not back off from supporting the anti-regime uprising.

Senior Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, 50, died in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 20 and his body reached Damascus on Jan. 28, according to Izzat Rishq speaking at Hamas headquarters in the Syrian capital early Friday, Jan. 29. He accused Israel of his assassination without specifying its circumstances. Israeli spokesmen have not commented in the charge, which debkafile estimates may have been raised to distract from Hamas' many troubles.